This Is the Sea
by Homeslice
Summary: 20 looks into the incomprehensible. [The count up to godlike tribalism in a community of princes, ditching regards to royalism and the definition of red carpets leading to sacrificial peoplefigures.] ItachiHaku, slight ZabuzaHaku Dedicated to T.I.B.E.sway


1Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Summary: 20 looks into the incomprehensible. (The count up to god-like tribalism in a community of princes-, ditching regards to royalism and the definition of red carpets leading to sacrificial people-figures.)

Characters/Pairing: Itachi/Haku

- - - -

_It was an old house but I thought I saw you through the windows._

- - - -

.1

Haku finds dressing as a woman is often times easier than being a man, even if Zabuza ridicules him for it, and then, much later, tells him with a sort of desperation behind his voice that he doesn't have to anymore. Haku thinks this is because Zabuza knows he is a man, and there is some sort of wrongness in seeing something and it not being exactly what it is, knowing what is beneath all the brightened kimonos and sweetened smiles.

It is a _man _beneath everything, even if at times Haku prefers being female.

Femininity is what makes Zabuza-san's eyes hold a strange light-, it is what, some day, might catch the eye of somebody who will love him more than the man with rough hands and saturated feelings, emotions chocked full of preservatives like food that will go to waste if it's not covered with contaminants and tasting funny in the back of your throat.

- - - -

.2

In kimono, pink like the rising sun, Haku is tempted for a moment, (only a moment), to tie the obi in the front.

- - - -

.3

There are strange men who live in the city where they rest, him and Zabuza-san-, strange as how whenever they are awake, the rest of the place is asleep, and the buildings and the people and the very cement on the streets only lift their lids when the sky is painted a dark, all-consuming color.

(In that way, it is safe to assume it has consumed the town, isn't it?)

Haku has learned to open his eyes at sun set and close them at sun rise, although Zabuza, ever the man of schedule, scoffs and sleeps through the night which has become Haku's substituted day. He says that once they move out of the city, there won't be people as strange as there are there, and then Haku will be very tired-, but Haku already is tired, has been, and it doesn't matter in the slightest whether he feels a need for sleep or the constant tug of need for soul-rest.

(You want to rest in peace(s-pieces–), and you're still alive, putting one foot in front of you and then the other, and another and another, until you have walked your way to a funny little bar that has lights tinted blue and smells like salt–and reminds you of the sea.)

The men in the city hoot and holler and whistle at him (her) by the time he has walked into the bar, and he realizes that probably over half of these men have wives. Perhaps a bit more of them have children.

Haku steps lightly over the small set of stairs like stepping over a body, and listens to the 'clack, clack' of his shoes on the floor-, one over another, each seemingly ringing louder.

It's not until a few minutes later he realizes the building echoes-, and he hears all of the same voices twice, even when he was sick the first time. He also hates hearing himself.

The head of a man highlights his way, and he finds himself staring, because the lights aren't blue enough to make his skin look it's color. And behind him, carefully stepping in the same steps the blue man has stepped in (can you see it outlining his little feet, the imprints in the carpet?– you get the odd notion that he is following in daddy's footsteps, think, 'he's too young to be in here', and realize you are too).

He is effeminate, and Haku wants to pluck him out of the great sea of men and out of the way of the shark (who is the man in front of him-, he has gills and sharp teeth and an invisible tail that flaps back and forth like a floppy dagger, and the man has made cuts so deep in his life time that it scarred him itself), to set him next to him and ask him his name.

He is effeminate and gazes a not-quite angry, threatening glance at any men who whistle, and his steps are not dainty and lady-like but swinging and poised, like a kunai. He sits next to Haku and Haku has the wry thought that this man might be trying to pick him up.

He wants to ask 'do you ever want to tie your obi in the front, too?'.

- - - -

.4

Haku makes a face at his quivering reflection in the mirror, because this time he is applying lipstick and his hands are trembling so bad he thinks it might smear.

Like a child, he wants to make _sure _that Zabuza sees him, wants to know how _pretty _he looks and spin around in a little circle, smooth off invisible dust. But he awkwardly glides past the sleeping man, and on his way out the door touches his hair-, the loose bun held by two chopsticks shot through the middle, oddly morbid-, feeling his way underneath the strands to his scalp.

His skin tells him he is still a man and he is partly disappointed and partly relieved, like anyone will be able to tell if they lie a hand against his face.

He gets the feeling that the man, the effeminate, pretty man who glared at admirers, knew exactly what he was.

The lipstick is there just in case-, something to hide behind.

- - - -

.5

Haku has a conspiracy-ridden kimono that is white and makes him look like one of the doves that are in little steel cages, lined up and down a few of the shops. He is one of the only people who bothers to stop and look, offer a finger through the bars to be pecked at, and he wonders if maybe this is only because he feels exactly like the birds.

There are too many people in the world who wish they could fly.

It is there he meets the effeminate man and his companion (if Haku were feeling judgmental or even logical, he would say 'the blue-skinned man and his companion' instead of backwards-, but he knows these two men because one of them almost reminds him of himself, and not because they interest him, or because they look odd beyond connecting himself to the smaller man's ladylike-ness), strolling down in the exact same order.

They remind him of his partnership with Zabuza-, there he would be, a certain, orderly number of even steps behind him, and Zabuza would be tall and proud and threatening. Even looking nothing alike, Haku wonders if they are each some deformed copies of each other.

"Excuse me," Haku flutters from face to face, stopped in front of the two men and deciding on looking at the effeminate male who caught his attention because then he does not have to look up to see him, "What are you doing here? Do you have permission from the Kage of this country?"

The tallest one grins-, he can hear the sound of lips wet with saliva pulling away from teeth-, "You don't look like you have permission here, either. You're wearing a different hitai-ae."

Haku sputters but is not completely thrown off, and asks their names. "I am...Uchiha Itachi."

"Hoshigaki Kisame. It is a pleasure to meet you."

"...Haku."

"May I make the offer of buying drinks on my charge?" Itachi questions, eyes staring holes into the ground. When Haku nods and accepts his offer, turns around to look back at the place they had been standing, he expects to see them there, like spit out peach pits.

There is nothing but the dark earth, and he steps forward on it, thinking the holes were made by the man's eyes and then the eyes ate them back up.

- - - -

.6

They're sitting at a nice little place that feels like a substitute home and smells like soured drink politely coated over with spray and fresheners. The air is old and Haku wonders how long it's been since someone has opened the door-, there are a few people there, scattered, but they may have been there for days and nights and weeks, unmoveable and clutching to their liquor and that fine aura of comfort there.

The men there, Haku thinks, do not have homes, do not have wives or children. It is a place for men who have lost themselves and have nothing to lose, and he feels unsuitable and out of place, feels their greedy eyes on him, dull but hopeful, willing. It is frightening to think that at least half of these men would take him to bed.

(If you tied your obi in the front, and put on heavier powder over the scars on your body, you would most certainly be away in some bed, tied down by the restraints of a man's body, who is desperate enough to not care that you have a man's organ. But that is long and far away and here you are, thinking the man in front of you, he might also take you to his bed-, you have never minded being used, and you would not even mind the process of him dumping you out into the streets or waking up to a cold and empty room.)

The other man, who is tall and casually polite (not the stiff polite of Itachi, who looks as though he suspects you of something), has already wandered off, taking a kind shot of introductory sake and leaving to a different part of the wide and open room.

It's like a window-, the air is dull and warm, like the hot mouth of the city blowing in. (It's all the same-, you cannot hear the birds at night except for the lonely doves, who are only ever as lonely as the rest of the people here, who drink and party and live by wild schedules to distract themselves from their own horrible ugliness and disgust.)

Haku, who doesn't know what to make of it, says, "Where are you from, Itachi-san?"

The man gives him a half suspicious, wry glance from taking a shot of sake, and sets the cup down lightly, like a woman (do you ever want to tie your obi in the _front_?). "Kisame and I travel to many places. This is merely one of our stops, like I suspect you of doing. My birth place, however, is unimportant, and I doubt you wish to dabble in such matters."

Haku doesn't want to say that he wants to know everything about Itachi, if only so that the painfulness of empty air is broken. "Itachi-san, I wish you didn't insist on being so polite." he says lightly, and drains his cup, liking the feel of kimono sleeves drifting further over his fingers and swallowing his hands in soft cloth, like the ocean's foam.

The city, the entire experience, is like a wave full of sea foam and too many drinks, swallowing and swallowing down what it knows it cannot digest. Fish bones merely float to the bottom and sink in the depths of the sand-, Haku can feel something jagged and similar drifting down to the pit of his stomach, but it might be the constant feel of uneasiness.

Haku's lipstick is light enough to not recognize on his lips. He forgets it is there and dabs lightly at his mouth with a napkin, and the white surfaces light pink with a hint of tan-, he has the grace to be embarrassed and stumble over his words.

He thinks Itachi must be sickened or mocking or angered, but a simple quirk of one side of his lips is response, what could be passed off as a twitch and, later, probably will be. It is fake through and through but for other reasons than to hide his disgust for transsexuals or keep himself in the company of Haku.

(The man cannot be swallowed-, it's hard to think of all men coming from a woman's womb. This sinking feeling in your stomach, it says otherwise-, this, you know, now, is the difference between a male and a female. You cannot bare children and you cannot bear the extent of Itachi.)

They both know this so much it hurts-, but Itachi is oddly unmoved and expressionless.

(This man is like a fish bone at the bottom of the foamy sea, spitting fire in water-, he is impossible, he burns you with his eyes, and then eats the hole.)

- - - -

.7

The festival doesn't last, like most things in the city, and Haku walks home with an extra slump to his shoulders that might either be the sake or the insufferable feeling of misery-, the town feels smothered, a hot mouth with whiskey breath and overused oxygen.

The hotel, similarly, smells like sake. He thinks that Zabuza is still sleeping-, he has the firm schedule of waking up at seven and going to sleep at ten, and it is unbreakable, the only rare solidity inside their placement. It feels like something out of a nightmare, and any solids are the pressings of a coming good dream.

There are, however, no ghosts or living dead trampling through his house except for the echoes of his own shuffling feet and the flickers of his reflection in passing mirrors. The rooms and buildings are loaded with them-, as though people need to be reminded they are real.

It's easy to understand that, when Haku just wants to go to sleep, and not wake up, until Zabuza tells him they are ready to leave.

Itachi had sucked everything out of him, like a child with a bottle-, and the sucking noises the squawks of morning birds and the early risers, who are rare and few apart, and he sees little of them. He likes it that way because he is living with one of them-, and there can only be so much solidity before it is crushing and bone breaking, like the metal cage around the doves in the markets.

No matter how much they sing, or how much Haku pretends, neither of them can sound happy, but the trama is a sort of realism on it's own. If it takes depression to know the proof of one's existence, then Haku understands that he can stop asking the childish 'why did you become a ninja?' questions.

(You wonder, 'Will Zabuza-san be more disturbed by your sudden halt in those, or your light shading of lipstick? Both changes make you leap back from your reflection, and you can still feel yourself inside your skin-, it's not as though something so separate as another being-, you are amazed each and every time someone's eyes glance over you without a second thought, only mild disinterest, because you are so fascinated with yourself.)

Loving one's self leads to self-hatred. Obsession leads to baffling distance. Romance with another is virtually nonexistant but lust is easily displayed and the consequences are similar, and as followed: Denial, anger, wrath, frustration, irritation, melancholy.

(Indeed, it's only what all these people have been feeling. Did they fall in love with the city or their sake cups and be rejected even by the inanimate objects? Is that why they look at you with disinterest, because, unknowingly, you have already become one of them?)

There are mirrors in the hotel because everyone in the town is trying to turn them into themselves. Vanity and worship is simply another way to brain wash.

Haku walked into the town and found a million faces of himself-, it was unmoving and a bitter performance.

It still didn't matter when it ended.

- - - -

.8

Haku listens to the rain outside the window and wants to pretend it's the sea.

That they (Zabuza-san, himself, Itachi, the strange man who is polite enough to be nice but threatening enough to be rude) are submerged in a basin of ocean water is a wonderful idea and he rolls it around his tongue.

The next day he wakes up early, for just that one day, so that the candies and bakery sales are all fresh and smell like their flavors instead of dust and the old scent of age that accumulates in the town-, and buys a bag of salt water toffee, to suck on instead of ideals that are innocently impossible.

The taste sticks with him until his death, lying on a cold floor and not remembering anything but what runs through his head at the exact moment.

(Then he will forget.)

- - - -

.9

He moves into the streets-, thinks of how his whole stay in the town is made of night time and counting to midnight like it's New Years, and watching people drink, pretending to be sober.

All sober men watch others get drunk-, he knows this, and can fill in the blanks.

It precipitates a lot in the little city, as though shoved into a corner of the world and filled with the blackest ideas, the most rain, which succeeds in washing away most of them. What is left is shells, small remnants of people, like the sand on the beach packed with crab-shells.

It's all the same-, characters without characterization and the like.

He finds it odd when he discovers Itachi for the third time.

It is suspicious, as though even when he is the one who bumps into Itachi, the man might be following him. It's not until later that Haku realizes he is following Itachi, dragged by his ear to the shinobi like a woman tugging her sons angrily across the room.

He feels the same swept away feeling as the son might (swept over rugs like a dustbunny)-, and the same clipped, pointless pain but simply in other places.

His backside feels especially numb.

- - - -

.10

"You're walking with a limp, Haku-san." is the first observation made to him. It's simple and meaningless but with time the questions and answers and statements gain meaning and he is left uncomfortably squirming in a chair full of lies.

Clawing his way out of his own mess is hard and painful and Itachi is incredibly sadistic for liking to watch it. Haku begins to believe that Itachi doesn't feel so strong to him because he has power but because he has the ability to mind-rape and not feel an ounce of regret once it is done with, or as he looks at it's victims.

(You'll meet a boy who looks like him and speaks his name on unworthy lips and sounds like him and tastes like him and feels like him and says he'll kill the man and so you killed him and then his friend kills you and it's sad to die defending a man's honor when he wouldn't really care either way and enjoys watching you wobble in the muddy clumps of your own dishonor and mistakes. _He dismembers you, _and then his brother's somebody-nobody best friend really takes you apart, just for trying to piece yourself back together. A sad death indeed.)

Haku laughs lightly, an air of a pixie, a small, whispered huff breath pant that escapes himself forcefully and meaningless (_you are meaningless_). "Ahh, yes. I was training the other day and seemed to have strained the muscles..." he manages to look embarrassed but he is forcing himself to be ashamed for a thing that didn't happen in front of a man who is a much better pretender than him.

"One day I should like to train with you." says Itachi, much later on that night, and his hands fumble with Haku's kimono so much that Haku laughs because he doesn't believe it at all.

It's odd to see Itachi drunk but Haku likes what he's saying.

- - - -

.11

Haku finds himself stumbling home as if he, too, is drunk– he is drunk off the smell of Itachi, how his hair was scented with sea-salt and his fingers were cold and his cheeks were warm. He is drunk of sensation and can say for a moment that he is higher than the others in the town, who require alcohol.

He still wants to get properly drunk, though, because things that are memorable are sometimes not always so pretty as to remember them out of stark positivity instead. He feels like this place is his home, and when he asks Zabuza about it, the man says with little care and an unmovedness that is rather frustrating and slightly sad, 'you feel that way with every village we stay long enough in, Haku,', and the subject is closed.

It's still slightly open though, for Haku, who has windows in his mind that never shut properly, always shining a little bit of light and the tadpoles of a cool breeze into him. This must be why Zabuza tells him he is pure and innocent, why so many people like him, he thinks.

Regardless he shouts, "I'm home!" into the almost-empty but not-quite hotel, with a chipper-ness that he hasn't had for weeks (or is it days, or is it years?), and Zabuza lurches up slowly, slowly, up from the sheets wrapped around his waist.

- - - -

.12

Zabuza begins saying, "Welcome Home." (capitalized, Haku thinks, like a place, or a brand new town inside the town that is strictly theirs, strictly their comfort-zone, or their scheduling, or their recycled happiness-, either way it is something, it is better than nothing, and both of them appreciate it one step more than the other) when Haku enters with his cheery voice and happy smile, contented like a fat cat by the fire and getting a belly rub.

Then Zabuza falls back to sleep, and it may mean nothing, but the sheets are always pulled low, low on his hips.

- - - -

.13

The fourth time that Haku sees Itachi, is when the man is wearing a loose, light purple kimono designed with dragonflies and lavender, mismatched shapes that aren't particularly recognizable in geometry alone.

Itachi is someone left to the imagination-, and Haku wonders how much that makes him real, how much that makes him a spectral dream.

Haku himself is wearing a simpler kimono-, black with almost invisible, nonsense patterns. It weighs him down more than normal, and the make up feels like it's sliding off his face, _with _his face. His skin is falling off to reveal the man underneath, the unfeminine hips, the too-muscular arms, the fiery, male chakra. Itachi doesn't make any sly attempt at seeing them or saying he remembers all the bad, ugly man features from the other night.

Perhaps he doesn't remember it, perhaps he does-, Haku thinks that Itachi is a man who doesn't forget anything, even if they are done while he is drunk. With that, he must be a man with many regrets, if he remembers everything so clearly. "Itachi-san," Haku greets, and watches the edges of Itachi's kimono almost touch the ground, swing back and forth in the light wind (it's the wind that you have inside your soul, it's the open window of your crazy head, it's the untouched melancholy that is viewable to the eyes and numerously untouchable, it's the old, old cries of doves in cages, never to see freedom).

"Haku-san– perhaps it is more than mere coincidence we keep meeting up." It is Itachi's way of saying, 'why are you following me?'.

In all truth, he gave what most men and women would want, and Haku took it, and soaked it up like a sponge, and basked in the glory of the sun shining through the windows (it was nine AM before you got home to Zabuza-san that day, and you remember everything about it, everything about how Itachi took you and then after the hour of sitting there, everything about how Zabuza took you afterwards) for long, long moments of harsh breaths and soft replays.

But Haku wants more. "It was coincidence the first time I met you, Itachi-san, but I do not believe that the second and third times were, and I don't believe now is either."

Itachi accepts that answer, because he is a smart man and picks up the reasoning, even when the reasons weren't exactly in the words. It makes Haku think that Itachi might've gotten the wrong meaning, but it doesn't matter, because Itachi walks down the streets, damp with earlier rain, with him, hands close to touching.

It is in such an umoved way that Haku says, "Come drinking with me.", softly, so softly it is almost unheard, because Itachi is always most alive when there is a hot cup of tea in front of him, filled with three sugars and two creams.

- - - -

.14

The music in the tea shop is soft and unidentifiable, and Itachi seems to be able to ignore it. His hands are curled around the tea cup and he looks for a moment like he is properly his age, maybe even younger, because he is so seemingly relaxed and comfortable.

In truth, they both know that he could jump up and within an instant have killed all of the men in the room– Haku doesn't want to know if he's included or not.

Itachi drains his cup and Haku unquestioningly refills it, adding the two cups of cream from where they are cheaply piled on the other side of the table, and absently adds five sugars without realizing it. He quickly recognizes his mistake and apologizes profusely not because the sugars were two too many-, but because Itachi's presence made him uneasy, and it was also, in a way, something personal.

He knew the simplistic physical details without missing a beat and tottered in them like a child in a sandbox, not knowing that there is something beyond and it and somehow understanding that even if there was, they couldn't reach out to it. To miss that, even in such things as small as sugar added to tea, seems taboo, perhaps even more than the fact that he is male, or his relationships with other men.

Itachi almost looks like he wants to smile or chuckle at Haku's apologies, but it is probably in the imagination, where things are suddenly there if wanted to be, and there is simplicity in the complexity of _being, _and doing, and what things that are normally so difficult. Haku however, does not miss the almost-grimace, sour face Itachi makes at his too-sweet drink.

Haku lets loose the laugh that Itachi might've wanted to (but probably did not).

Itachi seems like a child that night– a little less unbearable, and Haku can for once imagine that he had a mother. He asks him about it, and is met with silence, before a quiet, "Okaa-san...was a good mother in context."

"Ohh-, I had a very good mother. But she also hated me, I think– I was the child that was a further linkage to her history and her being, and she never wanted to be who she was. She was a very indecisive woman with that, also." Haku thinks that in that, all mothers are the same.

He pictures a woman with black hair falling down her shoulders and milky rivers of skin, caring eyes and open arms, and children that don't succumb to them. She becomes tired with this.

(The boy you look at later who is Itachi's little brother, he must have taken after his father. What Itachi said, when he must've asked for the boy to hate him (the boy wouldn't have hated, you think, if he had not been asked politely and with gentility, so that he understood, and could accept that someone wanted it, because he was a very self-sacrificing character like that), was to be like their mother. Become weary, weary, and then a supernova. Dull down with time, have the first explosion cool. You will explode again, for now you are blank. Be tired with your dumbed-up lifestyle.)

Haku and Itachi have the same mother. "In context."

"Excuse me?" Itachi asks, as he did not catch the last words Haku had just muttered.

"It's nothing," Haku says brightly, and puts on a smile, wondering if all first-borns take after their mothers, and that is why they hate more.

"What was your mother's name?" (Something like 'hatred'.)

- - - -

.15

"Mikoto." says Itachi, as if it is a sentence.

The tea is cold, and Haku blearily realizes that it has been, even the sheltered heat in the kettle, for at least thirty minutes. It feels oddly like the stiffened frigidity of Itachi's exterior and interior are on his tongue, in the cup, sloshing around in a fake jade pot that is in his hand, being warmed by it (melting).

No matter how much Itachi melts away and becomes warm, he is still frozen over.

This is what tells Haku that Itachi doesn't regret anything at all-, and if he does, it is weak and pushed aside. He has hated to the point of lack of empathy, and still has the luck in his hand, because a man loves him, and another cares for him, and another still calls him 'brother' even through the programmed dislike-, and these traits do not matter.

To anyone who met him, the people dry and incapacitated by the idea of his drawing another breath, they can only say that they have a person who feels no particular opinion on. Nearly comforting– but insincere like kunai and winter and anger.

"What...did she do to you...to make you dislike her?" his hands tremble by his sides, but Haku can't pretend it's anger. This man, who is expressionless and emotionless, who cares neither if he lives or dies, can love and unlove, hate and be embittered, like a dislike people, by his own will, and his own finally plucked strings of who is worthy and who is not and who is truly likeable and who is false.

He is a god in his own right, and knows this, and has made the fear of others, the things that make Haku's fists tremble (and what made the fists? The anger? The confusion? The strain to stay uncaring?), build him up on a platform above everything else.

(Later you'll meet a boy above him, and you won't be quite as awed. Maybe blondes aren't your type.)

"I do not like or dislike my mother. You are convinced easily with the sway of not finding the in between. Despite acknowledging the space, you step beyond it." he continues, unperturbed, natural, almost, "I thought that perhaps you were different than that, than most humans."

"Does it seem differently, now?"

"You fooled me." Itachi responds, an answer. "Congratulations."

What's unspoken is: 'you fooled me. I would like to kill you now.'

- - - -

.16

Haku goes home wondering why Itachi had ducked his head, blinked twice, and left without saying goodbye.

It's not love, it's not even like– it's more something similar to extreme self-control.

Either way, in the wake of it, Haku begins to feel silly in dresses.

- - - -

.17

"Zabuza-san, I'm going shopping for clothes."

They are both pleasantly surprised when he comes home with pants.

They celebrate whatever it is in Zabuza's eyes (relief, pride, paternity, lust) that came about with the new additive with sake, and make drunken promises of leaving the town behind the next day, after they get a chance to pack their things up.

- - - -

.18

The fifth and final time Itachi and Haku meet, is when fireworks are going off in the background-, ironic to the lack of sparks in their eyes. Everything is careful and stiff and composed, and Itachi's face shows nothing while Haku likes to believe his doesn't either (likes to believe, but knows isn't true).

"If you believe you are sane, and someone tells you you aren't, and you have heard somewhere before that the truly insane do not know they lack sanity, what does that make you?" Haku asks, voice shaking and tilting and all over the place, a million figments of three different puzzles, scattered out of order. He can name them: 'fear', 'panic', 'phobia'.

He is made of little else, but likes to think he is more than a shivering rat under a combusting house.

"It makes you me." Itachi says, easily, serene, calm.

Haku nods-, Itachi is observative. Of course he would know.

"If a tree falls when no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

"Of course not."

"Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?"

"Depends on what you're talking about– evolutionary stance or regular birthing cycles."

"If I scream, will you stop?"

"No." The answers, hidden and secretive and with meanings beneath them, are simple.

-

When they are gathering their clothes, they do not say goodbye.

They leave not knowing whether they will see each other again, and half hoping not to.

It is Itachi, after all, and company grows dry and bitter and untasteful like the cold tea or the caged doves that stopped singing or the old, old tradition of taking, in a polite nature, men you have just met to teahouses (each time they meet, they are strangers– each time they meet it is a different, alternate universe, not remembering the time before).

He wants to say 'I hate you' but like is so close to hate with people like Itachi, situations like theirs, the bare and sometimes unwanted thrust of attraction and not finding one's self. It's dull, and decrepit, and trodden in the mud, but it is painted over their features because they both hate and enjoy each other's company. It was not pure challenge that kept them speaking to each other, but it is nothing special, nothing more than it would be if Haku set his sights on Itachi's partner, or some random man on the streets.

He wants to go home– Itachi blows out the candle.

- - - -

.19

-He wants to go home to Zabuza-san he wants to be able to feel he wants to be able to hate he wants to be able to love he wants to be able to see he wants to not make his way through the dark he wants to not accidentally brush his fingers against Itachi's sleeve and want him all over again he wants to feel Itachi in him he wants to feel being in Itachi he wants to not pretend Zabuza's hands are someone else's he wants to appreciate touch he wants to–

"Why do you always turn out the light when we make love?"

- - - -

.20

He wants to go home.

But the city has bit him, chewed him, and swallowed him up. He now walks into houses and calls them 'mine' and when they leave and travel across the water by boat he feels more homesick than seasick and when he meets the little boy that could, that could (that couldn't) he blinks twice and ducks his head, and avoids his eyes.

His _sharingan _eyes.

- - - -

Author's Note: Wasn't sure if Zabuza was the type of person to use 'make love' or not (_probably not_ . ), but used it anyway, because 'fuck' didn't fit the situation and it cracks me up equally when people say 'sex'. It's so generic, and the situation and question wasn't generic, or scientifical.

Hell, I can even imagine Itachi using make love. If he used 'fuck' that'd be scary.

_This is dedicated to the lovely and wonderful T.I.B.E.-sway, _because she requested Itachi/Haku. Wasn't so sure if the situations would get boring-, meet, teahouse, psychological or reminiscent conversation, rinse-, but kept it, because any other premise seemed so un-Itachi and Haku-ish and I wasn't creative enough to come up with another one.

I imagine the metaphors and such would get pretty old in this (pretty fast). It's a shame (and a sham), but I tend to do that, just because I feel like I can hardly ever get my point across. Which is a bad thing.

All in all, it was a pretty great fic, for me to write, at least. Got stuck quite a bit (mostly around those horrid '.5' and '.8' sections...), but pulled myself back up out of the water okay. Hopefully. Of course the conversations might seem a little bad (still have not mastered speaking! Aha! XD), and the characters are (definitely) maybe a little (or a lot, or all the way) OOC...

So I hope that the characters were not too bad! And I hope this didn't seem too unoriginal...By the end it really seemed it's own, to me, but there are a lot of ideas and situations you've probably seen before. Forgive me!

Now to write Ramen/Naruto. Oh lordy.

Inspirational music includes but is not limited to: A LOTta Radiohead, and near the end (oh thank you thank you thank you, you god of inspiration, you) Bob Dylan who helped me get out of my slump, and at the beginning I distinctly remember using 'Faster' by Third Eye Blind. More, probably, definitely, whatever. Am just too lazy and have memory and OCD issues.

The title is the name of an album by The Waterboys...I'd wanted to write a story using that once (I wanted the premise to be Kisame...AHA...again: -shifty eyes-), but it came out and then I thought 'that sounds familiar...' and looked and bam, there it was. 'Twas the Waterboys album name.

Horrible, bad, rotten long author's note. I sorry. -Also forgive numerous, tedious, far-too-many tea references!


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